When Maggie first heard the intruder alert she thought her toast was burning under the grill and it had set off the smoke alarm. A red warning light blinked in the panel above the kitchen door.

"Mommy what is it? Asked Becky ," looking up from her colouring book on the kitchen table.

Maggie quickly glanced through the doorway into the living room and checked on the youngest kids. Samantha and Timmy were eating bowls of breakfast cereal, watching childrens TV on the wide-screen in front of their play pen. They'd be safe in there, perhaps.

"Mommy ?" Prompted Becky .

"It’s probably those stupid Animal Rights protesters again. Don’t worry sweetheart, security will take care of them. It can’t be anything much ,it’s not on any local news update."

"Mommy why do they protest outside our farm?"

"I don’t really know Becky. If some people don’t want to eat meat that’s their business, but they have no right interfering with ours. Becky, have you ever seen a vegetarian? They look so grey and unhealthy."

Becky pulled a face and nodded seriously.

"And, besides" , Maggie frowned, "the way we selectively breed here, our livestock would never survive out in the wild."

"Mommy!" Becky screamed .

A yellow-white flame appeared on the inside of their door to the backyard. Within seconds the lock clattered onto the kitchen floor and the door was kicked open. Six armed protesters wearing military grade combat gear bust in through the opening , moving so fast Maggie only saw the outline blurs of their motion. Before she could react they'd grabbed Becky, Samantha and Timmy and had dragged them out into the yard .

Maggie felt her bicep encircled in a grip of steel."Come on you , now ! Let’s go !" The distorted voice yelled through a military synthesizer in the protester's breathing apparatus. The combat lenses made his eyes appear a magnified and iridescent two-tone ,like a giant cockroach's. As they peered into her a shock wave of adrenaline and fear forced Maggie's feet to move.

In the yard Maggie found herself being led and treading ankle deep across a slurry of freezing mud and offal . At the main entrance to the farm she could see the protesters with placards, and farm workers fighting it out under the floodlights. She glanced around in panic for her children.

"Go to your left, your children are over there," the voice commanded ,"the containment field’s down." The protester gestured to the rump of dimpled fat bottoms which wobbled as the herd of hopelessly overfed, flabby ,naked humans pushed through a gap in the outer wire and tried to clamber up a route between the mountains of broken concrete and rebar . As Maggie tried to rejoin the herd, the wind howled , blasting her with ice pellets and irradiated grit.

"Come on move faster, human cow, the weather’s good, you’ve got a chance, now run, alongside me," came the translated metallic voice at her side.